Infected
by FortyDays
Summary: AU. They say that the cure for bending will make me happy and safe forever. And I've always believed them. Until now. Now everything has changed. Now, I'd rather be infected for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie. And it's all because of him. Eventual Zutara. HIATUS.
1. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

 _The most dangerous sicknesses are those that make us believe we are well._

* * *

It has been seventy-three years since the Council identified bending as a disease, and fifty-one since the scientists perfected a cure. Everyone else in my family has had the procedure already. My older brother, Sokka, has been disease free for three years now. He's been safe from bending for so long, he says he can't even remember its symptoms. I'm scheduled to have my procedure in exactly ninety-five days, on September 5.. My birthday.

Many people are afraid of the procedure. Some people even resist. But I'm not afraid. I can't wait. I would have it done tomorrow, if I could, but you have to be at least eighteen, sometimes a little older, before the scientists will cure you. Otherwise the procedure won't work correctly. People end up with brain damage, partial paralysis, blindness, or worse.

I don't like to think that I'm still walking around with the disease running through my blood. Sometimes I swear I can feel it writhing in my veins like something spoiled, like sour milk. It makes me feel dirty. It reminds me of witches, of old, grey haired women manipulating people like puppets, cackling the entire time, their mouths dripping spit.

And of course it reminds me of my mother.

After the procedure I will be happy and safe forever. That's what everybody says, the scientists and my brother and Gran-Gran. I will have the procedure and then I'll be assigned an occupation the evaluators choose for me. In a few years, maybe I'll even get promoted. Recently, I've started having dreams about life after my procedure. In them I'm standing near a river without feeling the urge to move the water or become a part of it. My fingers don't twitch at the sight of it, they remain by my side.

Still, and free of the haunting call to bend.

Things weren't always as good as they are now. In school we learned that in the old days, people didn't realize how deadly a disease bending was. For a long time they even viewed it as a _good_ thing, something to be celebrated and developed. Of course that's one of the reasons it's so dangerous: _It affects your mind so that you cannot think clearly, or make rational decisions about your own well-being._ (That's symptom number five listed in the _bending_ section of the fifteenth edition of _The Phoenix Empire's Guide to Being a Productive Member of Society_ , or _the Guide_ , as we call it.)

Of course we aren't totally free from _bending_ in the Empire. Until the procedure has been perfected, until it has been made safe from under-eighteens, we will never be totally protected. It still moves around us with invisible, sweeping tentacles, choking us. I've seen countless uncureds dragged to their procedures, so controlled by their desire to bend that they would rather tear their eyes out, or try to impale themselves on the barbed-wire fences outside of the laboratories, than be without it.

Several years ago, on the day of her procedure, one girl managed to slip from her restraints and find her way to the laboratory roof. She dropped quickly, without screaming. For days afterward, they broadcast the girl's face on television to remind us of the dangers of _bending_. Her eyes were open and her neck was twisted at an angle, but from the way her cheek was resting against the pavement you might otherwise think she had lain down to take a nap. Surprisingly, there was very little blood-just a small dark trickle at the corners of her mouth.

Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe. I'm nervous, or course. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to get it over with. It's hard to be patient. It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the illness hasn't really touched me yet.

Still, I worry. They say in the old days, bending drove people to madness. Society was divided and constantly at war. People used it to kill and maim and injure and control. There were even those that became completely consumed by it, people willing to die for the power. That's bad enough. But the Guide tells us of people born without it who died trying to get it, which is what terrifies me the most.

The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! Hope you liked chapter one! Reviews are appreciated! :D**


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

 _We must be constantly on guard against the Disease;  
_ _the health of our empire, our people, our families,  
and our minds depends on constant vigilance.  
_

-"Basic Health Measures," _The Guide, 12_ _th_ _edition_

* * *

The smell of sea prunes has always reminded me of funerals. On the morning of my evaluation it is the smell that wakes me up. I look at the clock on my bedside table. It's six o'clock.

The light is gray, the sunlight just stretching along the walls of my tiny bedroom. The smell of boiling sea prunes makes its way into my nose. My stomach twists, and I have to close my eyes again to keep from remembering the hot, scratchy dress I was forced to wear when my mother died; to keep from remembering the murmur of voices, a large, rough hand is passing me a sea prunes to suck on, so I would stay quiet. At the funeral I ate four seas prunes, and when I was left with only pits I began to suck on those, the bitter taste helping to keep the tears away.

I stand up and move towards the window, moving away from the smell of stewing sea prunes and the memories they bring.

It will be hot today, I can tell. It's already hot in the bedroom and when I crack the window to sweep out the smell of prune, the air outside feels as thick and heavy as a tongue. I suck in deeply, inhaling the clean smell of seaweed and damp wood, listening to the distant cries of seagulls as they circle endlessly, somewhere beyond the low, gray, sloping buildings, over the bay. Outside a car engine guns to life. The sound startles me, and I jump.

"Nervous about your evaluation?"

I turn around. My Gran-Gran is standing in the doorway, her hands folded.

"No," I say, though it is a lie.

She smiles, just barely, a brief, flitting thing. "Don't worry. You'll be fine. Take your shower and then I'll help you with your hair. We can review you answers on the way."

"Okay." My grandmother continues to stare at me. I squirm, digging my nails into the windowsill behind me. I've always hated being looked at. Of course, I'll have to get used to it. During the evaluation there will be four evaluators staring at me for close to two hours.

"A level seven or eight, I would say," my grandmother says, puckering her lips. It's a descent level position and I'd be happy with it. "Though you won't get more than a level six if you don't get cleaned up."

Senior year is almost over, and the evaluation is the final test I will take. For the past four months I've had all my various exams: math, science, oral and written proficiency. I'm pretty sure I did well enough to get assigned to a college. I've always been a descent student. The academic assessors will analyze my strengths and weaknesses, and decide whether I am fit to attend college.

The evaluation is the last step, so that I can be assigned my occupation. In the coming months the evaluators will send me a list of four or five potential jobs to choose from. One of them will become my career after I graduate college.

My Gran-Gran continues to stare at me through the doorway. It's silly to feel self-conscious in front of the woman who raised me, but a hot, crawling itch begins to work its way up my arms. I know she's worried about my performance at the evaluation. It's critical that I'm assigned a good occupation. If I am assigned high enough, in a few years it will mean extra money for her and my grandfather, money they desperately need. It might also make the whispers go away, singsong snatches that seemed to follow us wherever we go, like the rustling leaves carried on the wind: _Sympathizer. Sympathizer. Sympathizer._

The word felt like a brand, my father's awful legacy to Sokka, myself, and even our mother when she was alive. He disappeared shortly after he was charged for being a sympathizer, leaving my mother to pick up the pieces of our broken family. He would have been executed if he remained, but that would have been better than abandoning my mother, than abandoning our family. _Sympathizer_.

Though, that word was only slightly better than the word that followed me for years after my mom's death, a snakelike hiss, leaving it's trail of poison: _Suicide_. A sideways word, a word that people mutter and cough: a word that must be squeezed out behind cupped palms or murmured behind closed doors. It was only in my dreams that I heard the word shouted, screamed.

I take a deep breath, then duck down to pull the plastic bin from under my bed so that my grandmother won't see I'm shaking.

"You know Katara, if you are assigned a high enough position, you could marry very well." My grandmother says.

I take the towel from my bin and straighten up. That word- _marry_ \- makes my mouth go dry. Everyone marries as soon as they are done with their education. It's the way things are. It's a mark of stability, the mark of a healthy empire. But the thought of it still makes my heart flutter frantically, like an insect behind glass. I've never touched a boy, of course- since physical contact between unmarried people of the opposite sex is forbidden. Honestly, I've never even talked to a boy for longer than five minutes, unless you count my brother or grandfather.

And if I don't pass my exams- _please, oh please, let me pass them_ -I'll be married off to someone within the year. Which means I'll have my wedding _night_.

The smell of sea prunes grows stronger, and my stomach does another swoop. I bury my face in my towel and inhale, willing myself not to be sick.

From downstairs, I hear the clatter of dishes. My grandmother sighs and checks her watch.

"We have less than an hour," she says. "You better get moving."


End file.
